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Japan to Station Troops on Yonaguni, Near Disputed Islands ( Copy right @ The Diplomat, Article by Shannon Tiezzi)

Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and United States Army In a move that threatens to reverse the recent  signs of a burgeoning thaw  in China-Japan relations,  Japan will break ground Saturday  on a new military lookout station on Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island. Yonaguni, which has a population of around 1,500, is located 108 kilometers east of Taiwan and 150 kilometers south of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. According to  Reuters,  with the new outpost, Yonaguni’s military presence will expand from two police officers to 100 soldiers and a radar outpost. A report in the  Ryukyu Shimpo  said that the base will be built on 25 hectares of land leased from Yonaguni to the Ministry of Defense. In return, the local government will receive around 15 million yen ($150,000) in rent each year. Construction will begin with the groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday, and is expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2015. Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Ono

JSF Tests against Russian, Chinese Air Defenses ( Copy Right @ Military.com article by Kris Osborn)

F-35 Lightning (Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and US Navy) Six Air Force F-35A Joint Strike Fighter aircraft are currently at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., to test the aircraft's stealth and sensor technologies against representations of Russian, Iranian and Chinese air-defenses.  "The surface threat is a tough problem because it is a system of systems and the emerging threats that we have right now can see you hundreds of miles away. If the missile is big enough it can shoot you from hundreds of miles away," said Thomas Lawhead, operations lead for JSF integration office. "If you have stealth as you go in all those ranges shrink down. Hopefully they shrink down enough to where you can get in and launch a weapon without being seen." He explained that the most advanced sensors have pivoted from European-based systems to ones in Asia developed by China. "If you look back to 2001 when the JSF threat started, the threats were mostly European c

Admiral Robin K. Dhowan takes over as the next Chief of Naval Staff, Indian Navy

Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and The Indian Navy Admiral Robin K. Dhowan on Thursday took over as chief of the Indian Navy nearly two months after Admiral D.K. Joshi quit the post in the wake of a series of mishaps. Admiral Dhowan (59) who has been the acting Navy chief since Joshi’s exit, has been appointed the Chief of Navy Staff superseding Western Naval Commander Shekhar Sinha. He will have a tenure of 25 months, retiring in May 2016. Admiral Sinha was the senior-most Vice Admiral but he has been edged out of the race, apparently because majority of the 14 mishaps, including two major submarine accidents, took place under his command during the last 10 months. Admiral Joshi, who had 15 months left in service, resigned on February 26 following the mishap involving submarine INS Sindhuratna in which two Navy officers were killed and several others were injured. In August last year, submarine INS Sindhurakshak sank at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai, killing 18 personnel on boa

Does the US Navy have 10 or 19 Aircraft Carriers? ( Copy Right @ The Diplomat, article written by Robert Farley)

USS America (LHA-6) ( Pic Courtesy- Wikimedia commons and the US Navy)  Last week the U.S. Navy  accepted USS  America , first of the  America -class amphibious assault ships, into service. Unlike most recent amphibious assault ships, USS  America  and her sister USS  Tripoli  lack well-decks, instead focusing on aviation facilities.  When fully operational,  America  and  Tripoli  will operate as many as 20 F-35Bs, potentially playing a critical role in what the Navy projects as the future of air superiority. Inevitably, the delivery of USS  America  rekindles the  ongoing conversation  over what, precisely, constitutes an aircraft carrier. In the United States, we endure the polite fiction that the USN’s 45,000 ton aircraft carriers are not aircraft carriers, but rather some other kind of creature.  USS  America  is roughly the same size as the French  Charles De Gaulle  and the INS  Vikramaditya , although a bit smaller than the RFS  Admiral Kuzetsov  or her Chinese sister,

Happy Vishu

Wishing you and your family a Happy and a Prosperous Vishu. May you be blessed with a Happy, prosperous and successful year ahead. Happy Vishu Manoj Ambat

New US Navy destroyer Zumwalt christened in Maine ( Copy Right @ Go Sanangelo Standard Times, Author ALANNA DURKIN Associated Press)

USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000), Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and United States Navy The U.S. Navy on Saturday christened the first ship of its newest class of destroyers, a more than $3 billion, 610-foot-long warship sporting advanced technology and a stealthy shape designed to minimize its visibility on enemy radar and reduce the size of its crew. Named after the late Adm. Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt, the newest destroyer's massive size and angular profile make it stand apart from other U.S. warships. And like its namesake, a reformer who spearheaded changes that helped shape the Navy by offering new opportunities to women and minorities, the Zumwalt will shepherd the fleet into a new era, officials said. "This ship is a modern marvel, and it's going to take smart and creative and hardworking sailors like Bud Zumwalt to operate it," Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the crowd of thousands at Bath Iron Works, where the ship has been under construction since

Crouching Dragon, Ambling Elephant, and the Hawkish Eagle by DIVYA SRIKANTH ( Copy Right @ The E-International Relations Students and Divya Srikanth)

Indian Prime minister with the American President ( Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons and The White House) (The original work by Divya Srikanth as appeared in the E-International Relations Students website. All credits goes to Divya Srikanth for such a well researched work. The original copyright of the owner is acknowledged) Introduction: Brief Significance of Indo-US and Sino-Indian Relations Since 2001, there has been an upswing in US-India relations, greatly facilitated by the Bush Administration’s reversal of the decades-long US policy of indifference towards India. The signing of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) between the Bush Administration and the Manmohan Singh government heralded a new beginning to Indo-US relations and cemented India’s growing rising power status. The 2005 civilian nuclear deal, which facilitated US technology assistance to India’s civilian nuclear program and allowed the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to trade with India, a non-si

GSLV to soar into sky with crew capsule in June - The Hindu

Image courtesy- Wikimedia commons, the author  and ISRO  India’s huge Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV- Mark III) will soar into the sky with a crew capsule from Sriharikota in June, signalling that the country is getting ready to send its own astronauts into space. It will be an experimental mission and it will carry no astronauts. This crew capsule will return to the earth with parachutes. It would be identical to the “final crew capsule in structural and thermo-structural parts,” said S. Ramakrishnan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. “We will take it beyond the atmosphere, make it re-enter the earth’s atmosphere, decelerate it and make a soft touchdown in the Bay of Bengal off the Andaman coast. We will make efforts to recover it.” The VSSC Director was speaking to reporters here after the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C24) put into orbit India’s second navigation satellite, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS-1B)

Indo-Russian ties under a new government ( Copy Right @ Russia & India Report, article by Neetal Lal)

Image courtesy- The Election Commission of India After India conducts one of the most crucial general elections in its independent history, among the new political dispensation’s foremost priorities will be to craft an innovative foreign policy that helps revive Asia’s third largest economy, as well as gives it geopolitical leverage in a region fraught with asymmetries and political tensions. In an external environment marked by uncertainty - a festering border issue with Pakistan, an increasingly aggressive China, and a politically diminished US - India’s outreach in an increasingly multi-polar world needs to focus on strengthening old ties while forging new ones.   At such a juncture, it becomes critical for New Delhi to nurture its strategic relationship with Moscow, one that outgoing Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh described as a strong pillar of Indian foreign policy. Indeed Indo-Russian ties go back a long way. Both countries share convergences on a gamut of global

Dangerous Neighborhoods: U.S.-Japan Naval Cooperation ( Copy Right @ The Diplomat, Original article by Dr. Elizabeth Guran)

Image courtesy- Reuters/ Toru Hanai U.S.-Japan naval cooperation has long been recognized as the critical core of the U.S.-Japan security relationship; the navies’ success in rebuffing the Soviet naval threat in the 1980s is legendary. The successful cooperation between the U.S. Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) even helped to buoy the broader alliance relationship, which was suffering at the time from trade-related and other economic challenges. The key elements that were so important to the naval relationship—strategic clarity, definitive roles and missions, and operational engagement—emanated from a strong and committed security alliance. As preparations are finalized for U.S. President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to Japan, a reminder of what made these two navies so successful during a strategically challenging period of history can provide useful lessons. Today, the two navies once again find themselves on the front lines in the Asia-Pacific region as